


The unspoken Arrangement

by Zeckarin



Series: And they were roomates... (but there were two beds) [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depressed Crowley (Good Omens), Gen, Minor Violence, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Queerplatonic Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 11:20:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20891273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zeckarin/pseuds/Zeckarin
Summary: Sometimes even a demon needs rescuing...





	The unspoken Arrangement

**Author's Note:**

  * For [megzseattle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/megzseattle/gifts).

> A lot of thanks to megzseattle for beta reading and encouraging me to post !  
You're the best !

Crowley was NOT happy.  
It had been a shitty day. Actually it had been a shitty month, wading in bloody rice fields.  
He closed his eyes an instant, wincing at what he intended to be a curse but only had been the truth. It still felt it on his hands, the metallic taste seemed stuck in his mouth.

Hell was ecstatic about it. He would probably receive another commendation for THAT one.

He had briefly considered going straight to the bookshop, getting sloshed on Aziraphale's soft couch, basking in the angel's comforting presence. But of course he'd ended in his flat. All these feelings were not to be seen by anyone, even his best friend. Especially him.

He was a demon, and he was cool, and cold, and detached, and sarcastic. And he just couldn't summon the strength to act like that right now. He needed to forget. Forget the cries, the blood, the violence and the children.

He slumped in his throne and miraculed himself a bottle of cheap whisky, hoping against his better judgement that the awful liquid will help him get rid of the taste still sticking to his tongue.

The bottle was halfway to his lips when he froze, an overwhelming and very familiar feeling coursing coldly along his spine, erasing every thought, leaving behind only one sentence, written in flames on every walls of his mind.

Aziraphale was in danger.

* * *

Aziraphale was not happy.

He hadn't been in a few weeks, really, first feeling restless, then preoccupied, and finally, these last eight days, awfully concerned.  
The angel knew of course what was happening in Cambodia. Even for one of the last persons in England not owning a television, he was aware of that kind of things (he was actually aware of a lot more things than your average English human, thank you very much).

And he knew Crowley was there.  
Heaven had told him to stay put when he suggested he could go and help, dispensing some miracles. So all he had done, really, was pacing in the back of the library at day, and walking down the streets at night in search of some evil to thwart. There was always thwarting to do, even without Crowley's presence (especially without it, he had to admit. Violence of any kind was not much more agreeable to his friend than it was to him).

He was an angel, and as such, he could sense some particular emotions. Love, of course, is a feeling angels can sense everywhere. But it does not Call them like some others emotions.  
Despair. Pain. Fear.

It would be simple to think angels can sense good and demon can sense bad. But what would be the point of an angel not feeling when he is needed ? And nothing could tug at an angelic soul like despair. It was like a siren calling “needneedneed someone need me”

Offering comfort and faith was his job, after all. And he was good at it. He had been for millennia. Healing, soothing, warming, without letting the awful pain get to him, because then he would not be able to help efficiently any more, and there was always someone else to help, compassion to offer. The secret was to let all of the suffering wash trough him and not let it linger.

He was good at it, with one exception.  
Crowley was suffering. He was loosing hope, sinking into despair more and more each day, and Aziraphale could sense it even at the other end of the earth.  
And he could not stay detached. Not when it was Crowley. He was scared, sad, and very, very angry at himself for not being there to help.

Usually, that's what he did. He would go wherever Crowley was and help him out of his personal hell quite effectively. But this time he had to wait home, because it was just impossible to go directly against heaven's orders...

He felt the shift one morning, sipping anxiously a cup of tea in his kitchen. Crowley's anguish suddenly dimmed, then there was a flicker of relief, then despair again, less cutting, but more rampant, mingled with depression. Crowley was coming back. He would not have to watch and hear any more, but it was a small mercy. His demon was cursed with imagination enough to keep replaying it again and again. Which he would do.

But he was coming back. Good. The angel had everything prepared. One phone call to make, and someone will soon be on the verge of death.

* * *

A quick demonic prodding told Crowley that the angel was still in Soho, which was surprising. Nothing should have been able to threaten Aziraphale in his territory. It was like that stupid Principality was eager to get killed, thought the demon with a feeling which should have been anger but really was closer to concerned affection.  
Crowley didn't take the Bentley. No way he would take such a risk in that kind of situation. Time was of the essence here, the angel would definitely get discorporated without his help.

He teleported near his friend, appearing just behind the three hooded men and blinked. What. The. Fucking. Fuck.

It was the Bookshop, Aziraphale's Bookshop. With the angel tied to one of the kitchen's chair (G... Sat... Someone, these freaks had actually gotten to the second floor !), his waistcoat discarded on the sofa, cuts in his right arm, KNIFE still in his right arm, bleeding through his shirt. The sons of bitches could at least have spared the shirt.  
That was too much. Way too much. There were books scattered on the floor. Crowley recognised one of Mylton's first edition, laying face down, spine bent at an impossible angle. Something screamed inside him.

Aziraphale looked mildly annoyed, more than in Paris or during the Blitz. Knowing him, it wasn't the state of his arm but that of his beloved shop that made him squeeze his mouth so tight. He was looking at the fallen books like someone just kicked his dog, totally ignoring the man with the knife who was still carving something into him.

The thug didn't even feel himself dying, which was a waste, but Crowley was only thinking in primary colours right now and was acting like his body didn't even belonged to him.

“Oh !” Said Aziraphale, snapping his head up with a bright smile “Crowley ! What a pleasant surprise !”  
“Shit, angel ! What's happened here ? How could they take you down in your own BLOODY BOOKSHOP ?” Barked the demon, taking one of the remaining threats by the neck and shaking him like a mad terrier.

His friend frowned. “Language, dear.”

“It's your _bookshop_, angel ! How on earth did these guys got into your _bookshop_ ?”

“Well...” Aziraphale distractedly watched the second man crumble to the floor with a broken cry. “I had just bought a lovely second edition of Alan's... I didn't even hear them come in.”

Crowley snapped the bindings into ether and gently took the angel's wrist in one hand, delicately healing him with the other while cursing through greeted teeth. The third man had somehow ended on the stair’s handrail like a soaked rag.

“I'll never understand how you could have befriended that freak”

“My dear fellow, everyone likes Poe !” was the incensed answer.

The demon watched his angel gather the books like a mother hen her chicks, using quick miracles to erase any damage, and suddenly felt really tired. It was a good sort of fatigue, a soft one, and Aziraphale looked at him, head tilted, and smiled softly with his eyes, and Crowley just felt good and safe and forgot the feeling that this world didn't deserve to exist. Aziraphale knew better than to thank him with words, but there were other ways.

“Nightcap, my dear ?”

And how could he say no to that ?

An angel and a demon were drinking in the back of a bookshop, and the night settled softly.

Aziraphale took Crowley's glasses from his fingers, cautious not to wake him up, and covered him with a (tartan) plaid before sitting at his desk with a tea and a book. He closed his eyes a few second with a relieved sigh. He'd been just in time. A few more weeks and Crowley would have been a lot more difficult to bring back. Like that one time he slept through a whole century to forget another dreadful war and the praises of hell.

Crowley was an optimistic sort of fellow, but sometimes even he was prone to desperation. Too much pointless violence, too much horror. Torture, massacre, lots and lots of them. And the commendations. The awe of lesser demons every time Crowley got back Down. That was the thing. Seeing human horror was difficult to handle at times, but being praised for it? There were just days when it became unbearable.

The French revolution. Watching the joy and delights of the crowd when a head fell in a basket. The blitz, and Crowley just coming back from Poland in a wretched state (Aziraphale really had to put a lot of thoughts into THAT one. They weren't on speaking terms and he needed a very good incentive to lure his friend into action.)

Every time Crowley was about to lose it, to just let go and give everything up, the angel was there to put him back on track and to remind him of the good things. Offer a little victory. A Spanish inquisitor who conveniently surprised a tiny miracle and decided to interrogate a white-haired English man. A French executioner with a long list of crimes going to the guillotine (really the man would not have lived a lot longer with that job. And he liked it way too much), some Nazi spies exploding with a church (Crowley's poor feet really HAD suffered, but he needed the physical pain to forget the other kind).

This time was a little more difficult to arrange, but there were always some unpleasant group wanting to buy his building, uttering thinly veiled threats or shoving big cases full of money at him. And these particular men HAD planned to break M. Tan's arm to persuade him to sell his delightful bakery. M. Tan's shop was just right the corner of the street, and nobody was permitted to mess with Aziraphale's neighbourhood. So, really, he would have had to take care of that problem really soon, and Crowley needed to let go of his frustration. Two birds with one stone, he thought with a pang of guilt. But only a little pang.

Because the demon would not talk about his struggle. He would run from an extended hand, hide far away and alone until things Got Better like a wounded cat, and Aziraphale could not bear to think of that. So he had to bring him back another way. And for that he had to get himself in trouble. Real ones. No miracle escape, no magic of any sort, or it just wouldn't work (you can’t feel threatened when there is no real danger, after all).

That was the arrangement. The original one, unspoken, come to life such a long time ago.  
Demons don't care for despair. It's a warm feeling, but not a useful one. A truly desperate man will do truly desperate things, no need to push him at all, just watch and enjoy.

No, demon's favourite feeling is doubt. It calls to them, whispers “oh, there is WORK to be done here”.

Nothing is more delightful to a demon than a doubting angel. That's what lured Crawly on that wall that day, so many centuries ago. An angel, doubting. And it was Good to feel that, so he came, ready to push the innocent bastard just the right way... but two minutes of conversation just destroyed every evil intention. He gave his sword because he couldn't bear to send the two humans out without protection. How could a truly compassionate angel still exist?  
He was doubting because he didn't know if he had acted for the best. He wasn't even thinking of the consequences for himself, just for these pathetic, mortal creatures.

Really, that temptation was going too far. He couldn't do THAT. So he pushed in the other direction, and accepted an extended wing with an odd lump in his throat because, really, he was a freakin' Demon, and just had Eve and Adam kicked out of Eden, and that stupid angel was SHELTERING him.

He sensed doubt in Aziraphale exactly four other times. Noah and the Ark, Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, and the killing of the Son. Every time, he came, said he was in the neighbourhood, talked a little, and stayed as long as he had to drive the forbidden questions from his angel's mind.

They never talked about it, that strange game of theirs. Fighting doubts and despair, every time they reared their ugly heads. But they knew, of course they knew.

What are friends for, after all ?


End file.
